"Nay, if an hour's nap will refresh you," said the elder of the
strangers, "make no ceremony with us. Your bed--all we can offer as
such--is that old-fashioned Dutch-built sofa, as the last new phrase
calls it. We shall be early stirrers tomorrow morning."

"And that we may be so," said Smith, "I propose that we do sit up all
this night--I hate lying rough, and detest a pallet-bed. So have at
another flask, and the newest lampoon to help it out--

'Now a plague of their votes
Upon Papists and Plots,
And be d--d Doctor Oates.
Tol de rol.'"

"Nay, but our Puritanic host," said Ganlesse.

"I have him in my pocket, man--his eyes, ears, nose, and tongue,"
answered his boon companion, "are all in my possession."

"In that case, when you give him back his eyes and nose, I pray you
keep his ears and tongue," answered Ganlesse. "Seeing and smelling are
organs sufficient for such a knave--to hear and tell are things he
should have no manner of pretensions to."

"I grant you it were well done," answered Smith; "but it were a
robbing of the hangman and the pillory; and I am an honest fellow, who
would give Dun[*] and the devil his due. So,

'All joy to great Cćsar,
Long life, love, and pleasure;
May the King live for ever,
'Tis no matter for us, boys.'"

[*] Dun was the hangman of the day at Tyburn. He was successor of
Gregory Brunden, who was by many believed to be the same who
dropped the axe upon Charles I., though others were suspected of
being the actual regicide.

While this Bacchanalian scene proceeded, Julian had wrapt himself
closely in his cloak, and stretched himself on the couch which they
had shown him. He looked towards the table he had left--the tapers
seemed to become hazy and dim as he gazed--he heard the sound of
voices, but they ceased to convey any impression to his understanding;
and in a few minutes, he was faster asleep than he had ever been in
the whole course of his life.

CHAPTER XXIII

The Gordon then his bugle blew,
And said, awa, awa;
The House of Rhodes is all on flame,
I hauld it time to ga'.
--OLD BALLAD.

When Julian awaked the next morning, all was still and vacant in the
apartment. The rising sun, which shone through the half-closed
shutters, showed some relics of the last night's banquet, which his
confused and throbbing head assured him had been carried into a
debauch.

Without being much of a boon companion, Julian, like other young men
of the time, was not in the habit of shunning wine, which was then
used in considerable quantities; and he could not help being
surprised, that the few cups he had drunk over night had produced on
his frame the effects of excess. He rose up, adjusted his dress, and
sought in the apartment for water to perform his morning ablutions,
but without success. Wine there was on the table; and beside it one
stool stood, and another lay, as if thrown down in the heedless riot
of the evening. "Surely," he thought to himself, "the wine must have
been very powerful, which rendered me insensible to the noise my
companions must have made ere they finished their carouse."

With momentary suspicion he examined his weapons, and the packet which
he had received from the Countess, and kept in a secret pocket of his
upper coat, bound close about his person. All was safe; and the very
operation reminded him of the duties which lay before him. He left the
apartment where they had supped, and went into another, wretched
enough, where, in a truckle-bed, were stretched two bodies, covered
with a rug, the heads belonging to which were amicably deposited upon
the same truss of hay. The one was the black shock-head of the groom;
the other, graced with a long thrum nightcap, showed a grizzled pate,
and a grave caricatured countenance, which the hook-nose and lantern-
jaws proclaimed to belong to the Gallic minister of good cheer, whose
praises he had heard sung forth on the preceding evening. These
worthies seemed to have slumbered in the arms of Bacchus as well as
of Morpheus, for there were broken flasks on the floor; and their deep
snoring alone showed that they were alive.

Bent upon resuming his journey, as duty and expedience alike dictated,
Julian next descended the trap-stair, and essayed a door at the bottom
of the steps. It was fastened within. He called--no answer was
returned. It must be, he thought, the apartment of the revellers, now
probably sleeping as soundly as their dependants still slumbered, and
as he himself had done a few minutes before. Should he awake them?--To
what purpose? They were men with whom accident had involved him
against his own will; and situated as he was, he thought it wise to
take the earliest opportunity of breaking off from society which was
suspicious, and might be perilous. Ruminating thus, he essayed another
door, which admitted him to a bedroom, where lay another harmonious
slumberer. The mean utensils, pewter measures, empty cans and casks,
with which this room was lumbered, proclaimed it that of the host, who
slept surrounded by his professional implements of hospitality and
stock-in-trade.

This discovery relieved Peveril from some delicate embarrassment which
he had formerly entertained. He put upon the table a piece of money,
sufficient, as he judged, to pay his share of the preceding night's
reckoning; not caring to be indebted for his entertainment to the
strangers, whom he was leaving without the formality of an adieu.

His conscience cleared of this gentleman-like scruple, Peveril
proceeded with a light heart, though somewhat a dizzy head, to the
stable, which he easily recognised among a few other paltry outhouses.
His horse, refreshed with rest, and perhaps not unmindful of his
services the evening before, neighed as his master entered the stable;
and Peveril accepted the sound as an omen of a prosperous journey. He
paid the augury with a sieveful of corn; and, while his palfrey
profited by his attention, walked into the fresh air to cool his
heated blood, and consider what course he should pursue in order to
reach the Castle of Martindale before sunset. His acquaintance with
the country in general gave him confidence that he could not have
greatly deviated from the nearest road; and with his horse in good
condition, he conceived he might easily reach Martindale before
nightfall.

Having adjusted his route in his mind, he returned into the stable to
prepare his steed for the journey, and soon led him into the ruinous
courtyard of the inn, bridled, saddled, and ready to be mounted. But
as Peveril's hand was upon the mane, and his left foot in the stirrup,
a hand touched his cloak, and the voice of Ganlesse said, "What,
Master Peveril, is this your foreign breeding? or have you learned in
France to take French leave of your friends?"

Julian started like a guilty thing, although a moment's reflection
assured him that he was neither wrong nor in danger. "I cared not to
disturb you," he said, "although I did come as far as the door of your
chamber. I supposed your friend and you might require, after our last
night's revel, rather sleep than ceremony. I left my own bed, though a
rough one, with more reluctance than usual; and as my occasions oblige
me to be an early traveller, I thought it best to depart without
leave-taking. I have left a token for mine host on the table of his
apartment."

"It was unnecessary," said Ganlesse; "the rascal is already overpaid.
--But are you not rather premature in your purpose of departing? My
mind tells me that Master Julian Peveril had better proceed with me to
London, than turn aside for any purpose whatever. You may see already
that I am no ordinary person, but a master-spirit of the time. For the
cuckoo I travel with, and whom I indulge in his prodigal follies, he
also has his uses. But you are a different cast; and I not only would
serve you, but even wish you, to be my own."

Julian gazed on this singular person when he spoke. We have already
said his figure was mean and slight, with very ordinary and unmarked
features, unless we were to distinguish the lightnings of a keen grey
eye, which corresponded in its careless and prideful glance, with the
haughty superiority which the stranger assumed in his conversation. It
was not till after a momentary pause that Julian replied, "Can you
wonder, sir, that in my circumstances--if they are indeed known to you
so well as they seem--I should decline unnecessary confidence on the
affairs of moment which have called me hither, or refuse the company
of a stranger, who assigns no reason for desiring mine?"

"Be it as you list, young man," answered Ganlesse; "only remember
hereafter, you had a fair offer--it is not every one to whom I would
have made it. If we should meet hereafter, on other, and on worse
terms, impute it to yourself and not to me."

"I understand not your threat," answered Peveril, "If a threat be
indeed implied. I have done no evil--I feel no apprehension--and I
cannot, in common sense, conceive why I should suffer for refusing my
confidence to a stranger, who seems to require that I should submit me
blindfold to his guidance."

"Farewell, then, Sir Julian of the Peak,--that may soon be," said the
stranger, removing the hand which he had as yet left carelessly on the
horse's bridle.

"How mean you by that phrase?" said Julian; "and why apply such a
title to me?"

The stranger smiled, and only answered, "Here our conference ends. The
way is before you. You will find it longer and rougher than that by
which I would have guided you."

So saying, Ganlesse turned his back and walked toward the house. On
the threshold he turned about once more, and seeing that Peveril had
not yet moved from the spot, he again smiled and beckoned to him; but
Julian, recalled by that sign to recollection, spurred his horse and
set forward on his journey.

It was not long ere his local acquaintance with the country enabled
him to regain the road to Martindale, from which he had diverged on
the preceding evening for about two miles. But the roads, or rather
the paths, of this wild country, so much satirised by their native
poet, Cotton, were so complicated in some places, so difficult to be
traced in others, and so unfit for hasty travelling in almost all,
that in spite of Julian's utmost exertions, and though he made no
longer delay upon the journey than was necessary to bait his horse at
a small hamlet through which he passed at noon, it was nightfall ere
he reached an eminence, from which, an hour sooner, the battlements of
Martindale Castle would have been visible; and where, when they were
hid in night, their situation was indicated by a light constantly
maintained in a lofty tower, called the Warder's Turret; and which
domestic beacon had acquired, through all the neighbourhood, the name
of Peveril's Polestar.

This was regularly kindled at curfew toll, and supplied with as much
wood and charcoal as maintained the light till sunrise; and at no
period was the ceremonial omitted, saving during the space intervening
between the death of a Lord of the Castle and his interment. When this
last event had taken place, the nightly beacon was rekindled with some
ceremony, and continued till fate called the successor to sleep with
his fathers. It is not known from which circumstance the practice of
maintaining this light originally sprung. Tradition spoke of it
doubtfully. Some thought it was the signal of general hospitality,
which, in ancient times, guided the wandering knight, or the weary
pilgrim, to rest and refreshment. Others spoke of it as a "love-
lighted watchfire," by which the provident anxiety of a former lady of
Martindale guided her husband homeward through the terrors of a
midnight storm. The less favourable construction of unfriendly
neighbours of the dissenting persuasion, ascribed the origin and
continuance of this practice to the assuming pride of the family of
Peveril, who thereby chose to intimate their ancient /suzerainté/ over
the whole country, in the manner of the admiral who carries the
lantern in the poop, for the guidance of the fleet. And in the former
times, our old friend, Master Solsgrace, dealt from the pulpit many a
hard hit against Sir Geoffrey, as he that had raised his horn, and set
up his candlestick on high. Certain it is, that all the Peverils, from
father to son, had been especially attentive to the maintenance of
this custom, as something intimately connected with the dignity of
their family; and in the hands of Sir Geoffrey, the observance was not
likely to be omitted.

Accordingly, the polar-star of Peveril had continued to beam more or
less brightly during all the vicissitudes of the Civil War; and
glimmered, however faintly, during the subsequent period of Sir
Geoffrey's depression. But he was often heard to say, and sometimes to
swear, that while there was a perch of woodland left to the estate,
the old beacon-grate should not lack replenishing. All this his son
Julian well knew; and therefore it was with no ordinary feelings of
surprise and anxiety, that, looking in the direction of the Castle, he
perceived that the light was not visible. He halted--rubbed his eyes--
shifted his position--and endeavoured, in vain, to persuade himself
that he had mistaken the point from which the polar-star of his house
was visible, or that some newly intervening obstacle, the growth of a
plantation, perhaps, or the erection of some building, intercepted the
light of the beacon. But a moment's reflection assured him, that from
the high and free situation which Martindale Castle bore in reference
to the surrounding country, this could not have taken place; and the
inference necessarily forced itself upon his mind, that Sir Geoffrey,
his father, was either deceased, or that the family must have been
disturbed by some strange calamity, under the pressure of which, their
wonted custom and solemn usage had been neglected.

Under the influence of undefinable apprehension, young Peveril now
struck the spurs into his jaded steed, and forcing him down the broken
and steep path, at a pace which set safety at defiance, he arrived at
the village of Martindale-Moultrassie, eagerly desirous to ascertain
the cause of this ominous eclipse. The street, through which his tired
horse paced slow and reluctantly, was now deserted and empty; and
scarcely a candle twinkled from a casement, except from the latticed
window of the little inn, called the Peveril Arms, from which a broad
light shone, and several voices were heard in rude